Ukraine war briefing: Russia attacks Kharkiv with drone barrage, injuring 46
Russia launched a mass drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv late on Friday, hitting a high-rise apartment block, triggering fires and injuring 46 people, officials said. There were strikes in 12 locations in four central districts of the city, the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said on Telegram. Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the attacks, saying dozens of drones had been launched and issuing a fresh appeal to beef up Ukraine's air defence capability. 'There were no military targets, nor could there be any,' the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. 'Russia strikes dwellings when Ukrainians are in their homes, when they are putting their children to bed.' Terekhov said a house had also been hit in the city, 30km from the country's north-eastern border, and an 11-year-old child was among those hurt. The number of injured could rise, said the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
The US state department has approved the potential sale of F-16 training and sustainment as well as related equipment to Ukraine for $310m, the Pentagon said. Friday's move comes just days after Ukraine and the US signed a much-discussed agreement to share proceeds from the sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction. Ukraine has previously received F-16 jets from US allies under a jet transfer authorised by former president Joe Biden's administration, while Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.
Ukraine's parliament will hold a vote on 8 May to ratify the minerals deal, a legislator said on Friday, while the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, suggested the agreement would help Kyiv with air defences. 'This agreement will allow us to better defend our country here and now – to better protect our skies thanks to American air defence systems,' Shmyhal said at the governmental meeting.
Ukraine's internal security agency accused Russian intelligence of orchestrating an attempt to assassinate a prominent Ukrainian blogger, accusing a 45-year-old woman of carrying out the failed hit. The attempt to kill internet personality Serhii Sternenko, who once led the local chapter of a rightwing group but is now better known in Ukraine for crowdfunding donations for military drones, took place on Thursday. The SBU security agency said on Telegram on Friday that the woman – whom it did not name – had fired several shots with a pistol, one of which hit Sternenko in the leg. The blogger said there was no danger to his life. The woman's lawyer said in court that she did not contest the facts of the case. Russia's FSB security service and its military intelligence agency did not immediately reply to Reuters requests for comment on the SBU's allegations.
Four people were injured in a Russian joint drone and artillery attack on localities east of Nikopol in south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, regional authorities said. In southern Ukraine's Kherson region, a village resident died when a fallen drone exploded as he was trying to carry it away from a house.
Russia's defence ministry said on Friday its forces were continuing to create a 'security strip' in border areas of northern Ukraine's Sumy region after driving Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region, just across the border in western Russia. Ukraine says its forces still have a foothold in Kursk but it is concerned about a possible Russian advance into Sumy. Two Majors, a pro-Russian war blogger, said Russia was developing an offensive from Zhuravka to Bilovody, two villages just over the border in Sumy. The reports could not be verified.
People from the west African nation of Togo have been captured and detained by Ukrainian armed forces after taking part 'in military operations alongside Russian armed forces', Togolese authorities said Friday. The 'majority of compatriots, in particular young students, had left Togo under alleged scholarships offered by structures claiming to be based in Russia', the foreign ministry said in a statement. The Martin Luther King Movement, Togo's leading human rights organisation, alerted authorities in March to the case of a Togolese student captured on the battlefield and imprisoned in Ukraine.
US officials have finalised new economic sanctions against Russia, including banking and energy measures, to intensify pressure on Moscow to embrace Donald Trump's efforts to end its war on Ukraine, according to three US officials and a source familiar with the issue. Reuters reports the targets include state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom and major entities involved in the natural resources and banking sectors, one official said, requesting anonymity. But it was not clear if the package would get Trump's approval, the official said.
Greek authorities have remanded in custody a man suspected of photographing supply convoys on behalf of Russia in the Greek port city of Alexandroupolis, a judicial source said. The 59-year-old Greek man of Georgian descent was arrested Tuesday and taken before an investigating magistrate for a hearing on Friday. A police source alleged to Agence France-Presse that the suspect was targeting military convoys to Ukraine, according to footage retrieved from his mobile phone. But during Friday's hearing the suspect said he had 'done nothing illegal', according to a judicial source.
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